England v Venezuela preview: Young Lions bidding for U20 World Cup title
Sunday 11 June 2017 13:31, UK
England face Venezuela in the U20 World Cup final on Sunday morning as they look to follow in the famous footsteps of the heroes of 1966.
Paul Simpson's Young Lions have won five of their six games to reach the final at Suwon World Cup Stadium.
They topped Group A ahead of Argentina, Guinea and hosts South Korea and beat Costa Rica, Mexico and Italy in the knockout stages.
England have not won a competition on the global stage since 1966 when they lifted the World Cup on home soil after a 4-2 extra-time victory over West Germany.
"It is our time," said Dominic Solanke, who will join Liverpool from Chelsea on July 1. "Everyone will be rooting for us back home so hopefully we can make them proud.
"The determination we have is what drives us on. We know that even if we're losing we can bring it back.
"The disappointment we had in the U19 Euros last year [losing in the semi-final], we know that feeling, so we want to go and win this time.
"There have been no special words from the manager, he's just told us to focus on the next game, as he always does. There's one more game that we need to go and win and if we do it right we'll be champions."
Venezuela breezed through the group stage, scoring 10 goals without conceding as they beat Mexico, Germany and Vanuatu.
But they have needed extra time in each of their knockout games to progress past Japan, the United States and Uruguay.
"We've seen some of Venezuela's games and we know what a good team they are," said Solanke, who scored two against Italy in the semi-final as England came from behind to win 3-1.
"It's down to the last two now, so you're never going to have an easy final."
Solanke's double against Italy took his tally for the tournament to four, one behind Italy's Riccardo Orsolini in the battle for the Golden Shoe.
Argentina's Lionel Messi and Sergio Aguero are among the accolade's former winners, but Solanke insists a team triumph comes before individual honours.
"I haven't thought about being the top goalscorer, I've just been focusing on winning, but that would be a really good achievement for me and I would love to do that," he added.
"After that win over Italy we're all confident we can now go on and win on Sunday. We went 1-0 down early on, but we kept going and to get the 3-1 win showed that we are ready for anything.
"We were calm at half-time. We knew we had had a good amount of possession and that the game wasn't over, despite being 1-0 down. We knew that if we carried on playing the way we were we would get chances."
